Agentic AI is giving the CPU a new job in AI infrastructure. GPUs still handle model math, and the host processor now coordinates agents, tools, memory, API traffic, and long-context state. Nvidia Vera, Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000, and MediaTek’s custom XPU strategy show three different paths. For ISVs, silicon teams, and CIOs, the procurement question has shifted toward balanced racks that can sustain prefill, decode, KV-cache movement, and enterprise agent workflows at scale. The phrase “agentic AI CPU” carries some marketing gloss, and it also describes a real change in system design. Agentic inference turns the CPU into the executive control
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